Siloam Tunnel and its inscription

Mavi Boncuk | 

Behold the tunnel. Now this is the matter of the tunnel. While the stone-cutters were lifting the axe one man towards his neighbor, and while there remained three cubits to be cut, the voice of a man could be heard calling out to his neighbor, for there had been [only] its side deviation (Heb. zadah) in the rock-face [where they were supposed to meet up], on the right and on the left, and on the day when the tunnel was being cut out, the stone-cutters struck each man in front of his neighbor, axe against axe and the waters from the source flowed into the pool for [a distance of] 1,200 cubits. Now one-hundred cubits was the height over the head of the stonecutters.

Regarding the Siloam Tunnel and its inscription [1]: This inscription, which has been discussed in the media and is currently on display at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, relates to the Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem in approximately 701 BC. At that time, Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, was besieged by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib. Hezekiah, the King of Judah, demanded tribute from him and returned to Assyria. The Bible also states that Hezekiah paid 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold to Assyria. 

According to the Bible, the Siloam Tunnel and the Wide Wall in Jerusalem were built by King Hezekiah as a precaution against the impending Assyrian siege. Therefore, the inscription holds great value both in terms of biblical archaeology and as a historical document confirming a theological source. Based on the style of the letters, it is considered the oldest example of its type, dating to the 8th century BC. This interesting 533-meter-long rock tunnel, built by King Hezekiah (725-697 BC) to bring water from the Ain-i Silvan/Gihon Spring to the Siloam Pool in Jerusalem, was discovered by Edward Robinson in 1838. by Nezih Başgelen

The Siloam tunnel was discovered in 1838 by Edward Robinson. Despite the tunnel being mined extensively during the 19th century by Robinson, Charles Wilson, and Charles Warren, they all missed discovering the inscription, probably due to the accumulated mineral deposits making it barely noticeable.

In 1880 a 16-year-old pupil ofexa Conrad Schick, head of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews' institute for vocational training, found the inscription when exploring the tunnel. It was cut in the rock on the eastern side, about 19 feet into the tunnel from Siloam Pool. Schick explained in his initial publication Phoenician Inscription in the Pool of Siloam:

... one of my pupils, when climbing down the southern side of [the aqueduct], stumbled over the broken bits of rock and fell into the water. On rising to the surface, he discovered some marks like letters on the wall of rock. I set off with the necessary things to examine his discovery.

The pupil was later identified as Jacob Eliahu, later Spafford, following his adoption by Horatio Spafford. Seventy years later, in 1950, Eliahu's adoptive sister, Bertha Spafford Vester, wrote of the discovery story, which took place a year prior to her arrival in the city:

Jacob was above the average in intellect, with the oriental aptitude for languages. He spoke five fluently, with a partial knowledge of several others. He was interested in archaeology, and the year before we came to Jerusalem he discovered the Siloam Inscription... His imagination was fired by learning about the subterranean tunnel in the Ophal Hill that had been excavated by King Hezekiah to bring water inside the threatened city ... It is supposed to be haunted by a dragon or genie ... Nevertheless, Jacob determined to explore the tunnel ... Jacob, feeling his way, suddenly was conscious that the chisel marks had changed and were now going from left to right. He realized he must be in the exact place where the King's workmen had met under the city. Carefully he felt all around the walls and was certain that his fingers detected an inscription chiseled in the stone.

What sets the Siloam Tunnel apart is not just its purpose but also the remarkable method of its construction. Two teams of workers, equipped only with primitive tools, began excavating the 533-meter-long tunnel simultaneously from opposite ends. Without modern surveying equipment, they relied on basic tools and measurements, yet their efforts culminated in a near-perfect alignment when they met in the middle. The winding path of the tunnel—a product of navigating natural rock formations—remains a marvel of ancient engineering skill and determination.

[1] The Siloam inscription, Silwan inscription or Shiloah inscription (Hebrew: כתובת השילוח), known as KAI 189, is a Hebrew inscription found in the Siloam tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, located in the City of David in East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan ("Siloam" in the Bible). The inscription records the construction of the tunnel, which has been dated to the 8th century BC on the basis of the writing style.

It is the only known ancient inscription from ancient Israel and Judah which commemorates a public construction work, despite such inscriptions being commonplace in Egyptian and Mesopotamian archaeology.

It is among the oldest extant records of its kind written in Hebrew using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, a regional variant of the Phoenician alphabet. The inscription is part of the collections of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

In July 1890 a resident of Jerusalem had the inscription removed from the wall of the tunnel. During this work the inscription cracked into six or seven pieces and several letters were damaged at the breakpoints.

The Ottoman government in Jerusalem, led by the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem, Ibrahim Hakki Pasha, did not become aware of what had happened until the end of the year, when they were alerted by the director of the Turkish Museum in Istanbul. Under Ottoman law, the government was the owner of all ancient monuments found within the empire, so they launched a search for the inscription. During 1891, both the real and a forged copy were given to Ibrahim Hakki Pasha; the Mutasarrif put the inscription on display in the Jerusalem Serāj, where it was viewed by large crowds. The inscription was subsequently sent to Istanbul.

Casts of the inscription in situ had been made by Hermann Guthe in 1881. One was held by the Schneller Orphanage, the second broke during the transport to Germany and a third was held by the Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas (German Association for the Exploration of Palestine, DVEP).